It's time to redraw state borders

Yesterday, voters in the Swiss city of Mutier voted to leave the canton (state) of Bern and join the neighboring canton of Jura. The maps are going to have to be redrawn, parliamentary representation will change, and there's a whole lot of bureaucracy to make it happen... but at the end of the day, the city is simply much more culturally and ideologically aligned with the other state. Incidentally, the canton of Jura itself was created fewer than 40 years ago, splitting off from the canton of Bern over similar cultural differences.

I think something similar would make sense in the US. Consider, for example, the state of Pennsylvania. You have two very liberal metropolitan areas on opposite sides of the state: Philly on the east bordering New Jersey and Pittsburgh on the west bordering Ohio. But drive 30 minutes out of those cities and you're in deep red states: Trump signs everywhere and very little diversity. At the state level, that means there are a ton of restrictions (e.g. only the state-owned liquor store can sell wine and spirits) that are popular in most of the state's territory, but unpopular in the densely populated cities. No matter which policy gets passed, half the state is going to be unhappy. So what we end up with is polarization and gridlock in state legislatures that undermine effective governance.

But now suppose that Philly became part of New Jersey instead of Pennsylvania. I suspect they'd find many of the state regulations much more amenable there -- and the rest of PA could become more like Kentucky, if they so desired. (I guess Pittsburgh would have to leave, too -- maybe join Ohio.) I don't know enough US geography to name other examples, but I suspect there are a lot of cases like this: either liberal areas that are part of conservative states, or conservative areas that are part of liberal states.

One might even wonder why states should be contiguous territories. Alaska, for example, is separated from the rest of the US by Canada, and that's not really a problem. So could Pittsburgh join the state of New York?

Going a step further, there's precedent in Switzerland for states splitting in two: usually a conservative rural area and a liberal metropolitan area. They became half-states, now represented by only one senator each... but I think there's no doubt that those splits have been for the better. You'd see lower taxes and fewer services in the rural part of the half-state and heavy investments in education, research, and culture in the liberal part. The alternative would have been major gridlock: there's fundamentally little you can do to reconcile a difference where half the people think the government should tax and invest heavily in public goods and the other half thinks government should be as small as possible. This isn't just polarization that can be resolved by information or debate -- it's a fundamental difference about how people desire their government to be. So why not let both sides have their version and let people live in the part they like more? As the case of Switzerland shows: neither approach is doomed to fail, since people freely choose to live in either territory.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the State of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the State of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

That's grossly oversimplified. There's suburban "satellite cities" all over the place, there's "exurbia" and in spite of all the gloom and doom, small town America (which would include farming communities) is far from dead. Some are on the ropes but many are thriving.

And the actual red/blue political map, if you look at the very fine grained county or Congressional district level is rather splotchy, with many purple areas.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the States of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the State of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

That's basically what we have in Canada, and the system works as intended. Ridings are determined by population density, hence more ridings exist in denser areas; giving the larger cities and larger provinces more influence.

Here's an idea, amalgamate half the states into the other half, divided proportionally by population density. You'll halve bureaucracy while also presenting the views of the people on a national basis more accurately at the federal level. Don't stop there, lower all barriers, eliminate tariffs and subsidies - create universal free trade zones.

I'm staunchly anti-federalist, but even I have to admit that while the whole "states as mini-nations" trope is overdone, some states do have unique cultures and requirements while others... well screw it pretty much everything from the Dakotas to the Rocky Mountains has enough population for one single state put together. For the ones that are distinct, there's understandably a desire to have that specific identity respected.

The idea that a large area is ungovernable, though, presupposes communication by horse; maybe by "talking wire" if you're one of the last few square-bordered states. That's no longer true. Having more states than makes sense skews the value of the states while building inefficiencies into the system by way of reduplication of effort.

Municipalities matter, but it doesn't fundamentally matter what state they're in.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the States of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

T, FTFY.

Yeah I thought about that, but OP suggest states can be non-contiguous, citing Alaska as an example. So I figured you'd just have the one non-contiguous state and the one contiguous one.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the States of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

T, FTFY.

Yeah I thought about that, but OP suggest states can be non-contiguous, citing Alaska as an example. So I figured you'd just have the one non-contiguous state and the one contiguous one.

I think that's generalizing the reality of the situation, though. I could see Philadelphia joining the other east coast metros starting around, say, Norfolk...but I can't really see New Orleans, St. Louis, or El Paso joining that group. Similarly, eastern WA might really like being a part of Idaho but perhaps not in the exact same grouping as Appalachia. Regions are still gonna be a thing.

Anyway, we can fantasize about this all we want in a fun way, but the US was founded as a collection of states who only united to kick the British out, once that was accomplished, then the intramural acrimony set in, eventually leading to civil war, and even today we see the residual effects of that in our politics.

States are never going to sit by quietly while some amorphous external power redraws their borders, you think there's screaming about tyranny now, just try to create an "Ubantopia" or whatever at their expense. Then we can really have another civil war.

I'm staunchly anti-federalist, but even I have to admit that while the whole "states as mini-nations" trope is overdone, some states do have unique cultures and requirements while others... well screw it pretty much everything from the Dakotas to the Rocky Mountains has enough population for one single state put together. For the ones that are distinct, there's understandably a desire to have that specific identity respected.

The idea that a large area is ungovernable, though, presupposes communication by horse; maybe by "talking wire" if you're one of the last few square-bordered states. That's no longer true. Having more states than makes sense skews the value of the states while building inefficiencies into the system by way of reduplication of effort.

Municipalities matter, but it doesn't fundamentally matter what state they're in.

Bolded Mine: This is think is the most important aspect of this discussion. With respect to PA, yes there are two/three (if you count Penn State) liberal areas, however those liberal areas are split in even more distinct ways by municipality. Let's talk Pittsburgh only. Everyone assumes Pittsburgh is a metropolis of liberalness, however there is a very very strong undercurrent of conservatism especially with regards to race and nationality. There are entire neighborhoods named after the nationality that lives there: Deustchtown, Polish Hill, Little Italy, The Irish Hill, East Liberty (now East End), the Hill District. These are historical areas where you find incredibly unique cultural identities. Now, the reason Pittsburgh is being attributed to having a large liberal population is due to a number of things:

1. The Research institutions (CMU and Pitt)2. The tech companies that are setting up shop here (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, etc).3. The Green Pittsburgh Initiative that started after the mills started closing up shop.4. In relation to 1 and 2, a large portion of young people are flocking to our city because of these tech jobs.

Now, 4 has had a very negative impact on the people who have lived here their entire lives, the city is quickly becoming gentrified, to the point where an entire municipality was renamed (East Liberty, to East End) in order to cover up it's rough past.

To respond to commenters who said go 30 mins outside the city and it's conservative, it's not even thirty minutes, there are complete areas within the city limits that are vastly more conservative to ones next door (getting back to my original point regarding municipalities and their cultural identities). Pittsburgh is an incredibly small city, but due to the factors I outlined it seems like an incredibly liberal paradise. Look at the gerrymandering that Pittsburgh has gone through and you can easily see how it's political landscape.

Philly on the other hand is very different due to it's proximity to NYC and New Jersey, it is also vastly larger in terms of space and population.

I think something similar would make sense in the US. Consider, for example, the state of Pennsylvania. You have two very liberal metropolitan areas on opposite sides of the state: Philly on the east bordering New Jersey and Pittsburgh on the west bordering Ohio. But drive 30 minutes out of those cities and you're in deep red states: Trump signs everywhere and very little diversity. At the state level, that means there are a ton of restrictions (e.g. only the state-owned liquor store can sell wine and spirits) that are popular in most of the state's territory, but unpopular in the densely populated cities. No matter which policy gets passed, half the state is going to be unhappy. So what we end up with is polarization and gridlock in state legislatures that undermine effective governance.

The tens of thousands of square miles in Pennsylvania that have less than 50 people each, don't make up half the state in population terms -- which is the only term for which "half the state is going to be unhappy" makes any sense.

What's really going on in Pennsylvania, and in America more broadly, is: the dense inner cores of large cities vs the suburbs and exurbs of large cities vs the many many small and medium size cities.

Full on rural areas are not politically relevant other than in the case of rotten boroughs (e.g. Wyoming). What you are suggesting would create many more rotten boroughs. I can't see how that makes any sense. Maybe if it were to be accompanied by the de facto abolition of the Senate and the de jure abolition of the Electoral College this would make some sense. But even then, I don't think federalism works as well with tiny states. There's a certain amount of responsibility that states are expected to be able to handle, and a state that's too small is going to struggle to have a big enough government to handle all of those responsibilities. Worse still the newly carved out rural states would have weak economies and so would be even less likely to be able to put in place a competent state government. When state governments don't pull their weight they inevitably must be bailed out by the federal government. I see no reason to set up a system that is likely to produce perpetual parasitism.

TLDR: a United City-States of America focused around commerce hubs/corridors

The NYT map is interesting, but it's really not feasible to redraw the map with no regard for the state boundaries today.

Two states merging or a state splitting into two seems more feasible. If they merged, they'd have double the representation in the Senate; whereas if they split, they'd have one senator each (as is the case in Switzerland today). That doesn't change how (dis)proportional representation is in the Senate... presumably, it wouldn't make a difference to California that North and South Dakota are now simply called Dakota and pooled their senators. Or if New York became North and South New York, each of which represented by one senator. The relative power balance would remain unchanged.

The number of electoral votes in the presidential election is determined by population. So we would see states that lost population also receiving fewer EVs... on the other hand, it'd likely lead to an electoral college outcome that is closer to the popular vote: if Texas split into two states, for example, some of those votes would go to the Democratic candidate -- and vice versa for California.

EDIT: I wrote this assuming current areas joining current states, or just adding new states. This seems the "simplest" way to get different states or more, and doesn't require changing the Constitution in any way.

IIRC my con-law correctly, the Senators issue will prevent this for any foreseeable time. Each State gets two. In the current political climate conservatives from low population states in the middle get the same number of senators as NY and CA. If cities joined more liberal leaning states, they would lose many of the purple states as places of contention. There is no value (gain of political power) for the Democrats to contemplate such a move. Like wise, conservatives/republicans would stand to lose power if liberal cities got to make themselves into states.

This population v representation issue also shows up in electoral college voting. While the idea is that each EV maps to a similar population unit, it turns out one EV can count for between about 200k and 600k people, depending. While I haven't done the work to map out the bias in this, I think the EC "vote power" gets a slight boost in small population states (mainly the middle, currently red states). There are some small "blue" states, like the North East. But taking extremes, one Idaho or Montana vote, for the presidential election, has roughly 3 times the weight as a vote in California or New York, as an EV in Montana or Idaho comes from about 200k people, while in CA and NY the pool per vote is near the 600k marker.

I'm not even going to touch hose the House divides up seats, because that is a cluster of political tomfoolery on each side, depending on the state and prevailing political power.

I'm not saying any of this is good or desirable, just that there are too many unknowns for the current political powers to let the country start re-aligning itself.

Two states merging or a state splitting into two seems more feasible. If they merged, they'd have double the representation in the Senate; whereas if they split, they'd have one senator each (as is the case in Switzerland today). That doesn't change how (dis)proportional representation is in the Senate... presumably, it wouldn't make a difference to California that North and South Dakota are now simply called Dakota and pooled their senators. Or if New York became North and South New York, each of which represented by one senator. The relative power balance would remain unchanged.

I don't think you can do either of these things - i.e., have states with less than two senators or more than two senators - without amending the constitution. Which is fine but if we're going to amend the constitution with respect to the senate I see no reason to leave it tethered to where state borders were at a particular point in time.

It can't even be done with a single constitutional amendment. First you'd need to amend Article v to remove the rule that you can't amend the Constitution so as to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

It can't even be done with a single constitutional amendment. First you'd need to amend Article v to remove the rule that you can't amend the Constitution so as to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

1.) At some point that makes singing the "States and their Capitals" song very unwieldy. I'd argue that 50 is already a lot to deal with considering many are arbitrary. As a random person on the street and you're going to be lucky if you can find someone who can correctly identify >20% of states already (with emphasis on the states with greater economic importance most likely...)

2.) Apportioning states by the requirement to have exactly 100 senators is backwards of the original intent. States drive senators, not the other way around.

2.) It still doesn't fix the other extreme: Wyoming and all the other states in that class. Wyoming has two senators for ~500k population. By your example of splitting every populous state into rough ~6.6m person blocs, it *still* fails to address the imbalance. If the goal is to have one senator per ~3.3m people, then Wyoming should get one senator every 6th or 7th election. So John Barrasso is up in 2018 and Mike Enzi is up in 2020. So if you let them both serve out their respective terms, not re-electing anyone in 2018 or 2020 then giving them the benefit of the doubt and a 6x multiplier, they could get one single senator again in 2054. That senator should then leave after a single term. Just in time for the turn of the *next* century, they can have one more senator... provided that populations remain proportionally stable over the next 78 years.

So in one way, slicing the states that matter* helps reduce the voter inequality of people in those current states relative to smaller states, but doesn't do anything in a state-centric way to protect proverbial states' rights. I'd argue that if we have any desire to maintain states' rights, then states need to have some reasonably equal footing and reason to exist as that specific geographical entity.

*I'm calling it right now: States that matter (TM), matter because they have one or more urban metro areas with significant economic output. The more noteworthy states have the largest cities and multiple large cities in many cases. That doesn't in any way denigrate the value of a voter wherever that voter happens to be-- just the value of the state's government is largely arbitrary now and not at all tied to voter power. We need to get over the myth of the 'gentleman farmer' as the idealized, founding fathers' archetype. The economy of the world has changed, and wealth/power/usefulness is not based on living on a plantation anymore...

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

1.) At some point that makes singing the "States and their Capitals" song very unwieldy. I'd argue that 50 is already a lot to deal with considering many are arbitrary. As a random person on the street and you're going to be lucky if you can find someone who can correctly identify >20% of states already (with emphasis on the states with greater economic importance most likely...)

I think it'd actually make it easier. I bet more people would be able to pick out San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as the capitals of the new tri-Cali's than currently know it's Sacramento. Same with Miami + Jacksonville for the Floridas (over the current Tallahasee etc).

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2.) Apportioning states by the requirement to have exactly 100 senators is backwards of the original intent. States drive senators, not the other way around.

There would be 110 Senators in this proposal.

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2.) It still doesn't fix the other extreme: Wyoming and all the other states in that class. Wyoming has two senators for ~500k population.

Wyoming has nothing to gain from any solution to something that isn't a problem for Wyoming, so it would require a constitutional amendment, which is not at all easy to pass with all the small states opposing it.

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By your example of splitting every populous state into rough ~6.6m person blocs, it *still* fails to address the imbalance.

It makes a huge step in the right direction, at least giving Californians one Senator per ~6.3M people instead of the current 1 per 19M people.

If it were purely apportioned by population there's really no reason to have a Senate separate from the House.

It makes a huge step in the right direction, at least giving Californians one Senator per ~6.3M people instead of the current 1 per 19M people.

Would California go for it? The state enjoys a lot of de facto power that's directly related to its size. Split up the state and the people get better better representation in the senate but lose the ability to e.g. effectively regulate the national automobile industry.

I think something similar would make sense in the US. Consider, for example, the state of Pennsylvania. You have two very liberal metropolitan areas on opposite sides of the state: Philly on the east bordering New Jersey and Pittsburgh on the west bordering Ohio. But drive 30 minutes out of those cities and you're in deep red states: Trump signs everywhere and very little diversity.

Perhaps the solution is to stop looking at trying to push all policies at the highest level of government, and instead look to local government to address the desires of local populations. No constitutional amendments needed for you to get there with most policies right away. Instead of one state jurisdiction, wherein singular policies must apply across vast differences in politics, leading to acrimonious fights and potentially even to wild swings in policy as dominance switches back and forth between two options, we have lots of little jurisdictions which can be responsive to their particular residents? If policies are applied at the smallest possible level, many such fights should be eliminated (well except for those who want to force their viewpoints on the people from other neighborhoods who don't agree with them).

If we do this by county or municipality, if a county/city likes a particular policy, they can implement it (without a different county on the other side of the state stopping it). If multiple cities like the same policy, they can implement the same policy - only their ability to force other jurisdictions to comply is reduced (seems more of a feature than a bug, but that is my crazy libertarian streak again). If something must be unavoidably done at State level and no lower, then State law should cover it, but I'm a little skeptical of claims that things are only possible if done state-wide (seems more to come from desires to shift the cost to others for your local benefit or to force your opinion on them).

Of course the same arguments apply a step higher too - the federal government doesn't need to be involved in the details of local politics, but again, just my crazy political philosophy. Keep it as local as possible, and everyone can get what they want a lot more easily without being forced to abide by the morality laws of some group of passionate bible-thumpers a few hundred miles away.

2.) It still doesn't fix the other extreme: Wyoming and all the other states in that class. Wyoming has two senators for ~500k population. By your example of splitting every populous state into rough ~6.6m person blocs, it *still* fails to address the imbalance. If the goal is to have one senator per ~3.3m people, then Wyoming should get one senator every 6th or 7th election. So John Barrasso is up in 2018 and Mike Enzi is up in 2020. So if you let them both serve out their respective terms, not re-electing anyone in 2018 or 2020 then giving them the benefit of the doubt and a 6x multiplier, they could get one single senator again in 2054. That senator should then leave after a single term. Just in time for the turn of the *next* century, they can have one more senator... provided that populations remain proportionally stable over the next 78 years.

In a rational world, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho would be one state. At 4.9 million, it'd still only be the 24th largest. Kansas and Nebraska would be about the same size (4.8 million) and would make another obvious tie up. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire would still be on the skimpy side at only 3.2 million. Maybe the north-east part of current New York state could be transferred to that agglomeration. It certainly has more in common with those deep New England states than it does with much of the rest of New York state. Delaware can be merged with Pennsylvania, most of its people are within the greater Philly area anyway. Likewise Rhode Island and Massachusetts. West Virginia can be merged with Kentucky.

The above would leave the smallest states as Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico. You could use the freed up nine states to break up California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia (merge NoVA with DC to form a new state) while still keeping to a round 50.

I think it'd actually make it easier. I bet more people would be able to pick out San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as the capitals of the new tri-Cali's than currently know it's Sacramento. Same with Miami + Jacksonville for the Floridas (over the current Tallahasee etc).

I think you missed the point. At what point are we OK with the number of states? Again harping on Wyoming, we've decided that it's somehow culturally significant enough to warranty statehood. OK, so if a ~500k-1m person geographical subdivision that is *literally a set of rectangular lines on a map* is sufficient to warrant statehood, why don't we have 300-400 states? More?

To be honest, I'm only really interested in splitting the populous states if we reduce the number of non-populous states by aggregating them into larger regions. That may still not be a very efficient way of dividing populations based on similar characteristics (see disparaging epithets like "Pennsyltucky" or the "Redneck Riviera" area of the Florida Panhandle.)

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There would be 110 Senators in this proposal.

I'm not wedded to 100 being a 'magic number' of senators by any means, just pointing out that the selection of senators was intended to be driven by the states. A state has no requirement to subdivide itself in order to gain more ... senators? For what purpose? To benefit another newly-created state that now has its former constituents in it? The reality is that any reassignment of territories writ large would have to be done at the national level with consent of the governed (voters not states) and isn't going to happen.

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Wyoming has nothing to gain from any solution to something that isn't a problem for Wyoming, so it would require a constitutional amendment, which is not at all easy to pass with all the small states opposing it.

Tyranny of the minority. I agree that all of this is impossible, but small states voting for their interest as states undermines the goals of the country as a whole (as well as that of the people who live in states with a city ;-) )

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It makes a huge step in the right direction, at least giving Californians one Senator per ~6.3M people instead of the current 1 per 19M people.

If it were purely apportioned by population there's really no reason to have a Senate separate from the House.

Then why bother splitting states at all? It's a tacit admission that *not* gaming the system to get fair representation *by population* is disadvantageous to the residents of California.

Perhaps the solution is to stop looking at trying to push all policies at the highest level of government, and instead look to local government to address the desires of local populations. No constitutional amendments needed for you to get there with most policies right away. Instead of one state jurisdiction, wherein singular policies must apply across vast differences in politics, leading to acrimonious fights and potentially even to wild swings in policy as dominance switches back and forth between two options, we have lots of little jurisdictions which can be responsive to their particular residents? If policies are applied at the smallest possible level, many such fights should be eliminated (well except for those who want to force their viewpoints on the people from other neighborhoods who don't agree with them).

If we do this by county or municipality, if a county/city likes a particular policy, they can implement it (without a different county on the other side of the state stopping it). If multiple cities like the same policy, they can implement the same policy - only their ability to force other jurisdictions to comply is reduced (seems more of a feature than a bug, but that is my crazy libertarian streak again). If something must be unavoidably done at State level and no lower, then State law should cover it, but I'm a little skeptical of claims that things are only possible if done state-wide (seems more to come from desires to shift the cost to others for your local benefit or to force your opinion on them).

Of course the same arguments apply a step higher too - the federal government doesn't need to be involved in the details of local politics, but again, just my crazy political philosophy. Keep it as local as possible, and everyone can get what they want a lot more easily without being forced to abide by the morality laws of some group of passionate bible-thumpers a few hundred miles away.

I could probably best be described as the polar opposite of a libertarian, but cities (metro areas) matter as a meaningful, organic subdivision. You could probably argue successfully from a libertarian standpoint that a nation-state like the US matters as well as a relatively meaningful entity.

Counties and states are almost entirely arbitrary. Metro areas often cross county boundaries and sometimes even cross state boundaries. There's no consistency to how counties (or Parishes or whatever) are sized or apportioned on a state-by-state basis.

I would strongly prefer that all laws that make sense at a municipal level be done at that municipal level. That's the domain least poisoned by politics because for most things, everyone at least agrees what needs to be done even if they don't agree on the best way to accomplish those goals.

I live in a reality where my municipality (and really all the major cities in the state) are having their rights to make their own decisions constantly and in some cases aggressively threatened by the state government. The cases where some set of rules would make sense at the state level but *not* at the national level seems dubious to me. If, for example, the state sees fit to enact rules for power poles stating who can and can't hang utilities from them and the fees/rules/etc for doing so, why would that in any way NOT be useful the next state over? If the justification is that it needs to be easier for business to have clear rules-- I completely appreciate that. It still means there may be 49 different other sets of rules, bringing in massive inefficiencies. I'd generally agree on that point that a state is not the right blunt instrument to fix municipalities who want a patchwork of conflicting laws and regulations. I'm not suggesting that we need to abolish states conceptually, just that they should act more like "a county of counties" -- generally with reduced power relating to those few areas that need to be handled within a state at a widespread scale, but don't cross state boundaries.

The risk here is with all things libertarian-- that an individual might have sufficiently different rights wherever they go, but that's not really where this thread is headed at this time.

In a rational world, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho would be one state. At 4.9 million, it'd still only be the 24th largest. Kansas and Nebraska would be about the same size (4.8 million) and would make another obvious tie up. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire would still be on the skimpy side at only 3.2 million. Maybe the north-east part of current New York state could be transferred to that agglomeration. It certainly has more in common with those deep New England states than it does with much of the rest of New York state. Delaware can be merged with Pennsylvania, most of its people are within the greater Philly area anyway. Likewise Rhode Island and Massachusetts. West Virginia can be merged with Kentucky.

The above would leave the smallest states as Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico. You could use the freed up nine states to break up California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia (merge NoVA with DC to form a new state) while still keeping to a round 50.

I don't fundamentally disagree with attempting apportionment like this -- especially for the Mountain West and Great Plains. I understand *why* all the square states exist as they do, and that >100 years ago it wouldn't have made sense to have a single "Idaho to the Dakotas" state by virtue of transportation speeds and rugged terrain. You're proposing a state that spans appx. 476,443 sq. miles-- almost two Texases in other words. That's still a formidable chunk of geography by size.

On a positive side, resizing these states gives them a better shot at having things like good university systems (I don't fully agree how these are funded, and why "out of state tuition is a thing" but that's another digression into an unfixable problem), hospital systems, etc.

Boise is twice the size of most of the largest cities in these states now (Billings, Sioux Falls, Fargo and three times the size of Cheyenne.) The only problem is that it still leaves the super-state without a sizable city. That's really more of a statement of how tiny the rest of the states' populations are than a huge accolade for Boise. Still-- it's a relatively robust economy and a pleasant, growing city... it's just that it's the 81st metro area in the US.

It's still twice as large as Alaska's major population center, though! It's still smaller as a state than Alaska, so I guess Alaska becomes the new benchmark.

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

1.) At some point that makes singing the "States and their Capitals" song very unwieldy. I'd argue that 50 is already a lot to deal with considering many are arbitrary. As a random person on the street and you're going to be lucky if you can find someone who can correctly identify >20% of states already (with emphasis on the states with greater economic importance most likely...)

I think it'd actually make it easier. I bet more people would be able to pick out San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as the capitals of the new tri-Cali's than currently know it's Sacramento. Same with Miami + Jacksonville for the Floridas (over the current Tallahasee etc).

Trying to dice up states so that people can remember their capitals better is one of the stupidest, if not the stupidest, reason to redraw state lines that I've heard in my lifetime.

Dicing up California in order to get more liberal Senate votes is marginally better, but only just. It'll cause more real world problems than it solves. The fight between Northern Cali and Southern Cali over water rights and usage is already a sore point. If they were two (or three!) different states, that would exacerbate that problem, which I think is considerably more important than creating more jobs for politicians.

I could probably best be described as the polar opposite of a libertarian, but cities (metro areas) matter as a meaningful, organic subdivision. You could probably argue successfully from a libertarian standpoint that a nation-state like the US matters as well as a relatively meaningful entity.

Counties and states are almost entirely arbitrary. Metro areas often cross county boundaries and sometimes even cross state boundaries. There's no consistency to how counties (or Parishes or whatever) are sized or apportioned on a state-by-state basis.

I would strongly prefer that all laws that make sense at a municipal level be done at that municipal level. That's the domain least poisoned by politics because for most things, everyone at least agrees what needs to be done even if they don't agree on the best way to accomplish those goals.

City borders are highly arbitrary. Why is San Francisco such a small percentage of the Bay Area? But I do agree with parenthetical, metro areas are natural governance units and should ideally: a) not be split across jurisdictions and b) have a fair amount of home rule.

That said, there are disadvantages as well as advantages to the local level. The local level is the most likely to be outright corrupt -- not revolving doors, not campaign donations, but outright bags of money type stuff. In addition, since cities are the economic engines of the nation it may not make sense to leave their fates in the hands of parochial interests. Even a majority of San Franciscans wants to keep tall buildings out, it may be best for America to override those wishes.

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

1.) At some point that makes singing the "States and their Capitals" song very unwieldy. I'd argue that 50 is already a lot to deal with considering many are arbitrary. As a random person on the street and you're going to be lucky if you can find someone who can correctly identify >20% of states already (with emphasis on the states with greater economic importance most likely...)

I think it'd actually make it easier. I bet more people would be able to pick out San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as the capitals of the new tri-Cali's than currently know it's Sacramento. Same with Miami + Jacksonville for the Floridas (over the current Tallahasee etc).

Trying to dice up states so that people can remember their capitals better is one of the stupidest, if not the stupidest, reason to redraw state lines that I've heard in my lifetime.

Nice troll. (Capitals obviously had nothing whatsoever to do with the proposal or its motivation).

Quote:

Dicing up California in order to get more liberal Senate votes is marginally better, but only just. It'll cause more real world problems than it solves. The fight between Northern Cali and Southern Cali over water rights and usage is already a sore point. If they were two (or three!) different states, that would exacerbate that problem, which I think is considerably more important than creating more jobs for politicians.

There are definitely plusses and minuses to divvying up big states like California. In this political climate it probably wouldn't get much support, as Cali's status as a large state and large economy gives it additional pull that might be lacking in a 3 state system. But I don't think water is much of an issue for this in particular. The most important water agreements (those for the Colorado River) are already cross-state (in some cases international) and adding addition state boundaries wouldn't be much of an issue. (The main problem is northern Cali isn't even capable of monitoring water use in a lot of places and has lots of antiquated water agreements where particular farmers get access to an entire source of water rather than an amount of water.) You would have to draw a line through LA county though to make a reasonable 3 state break.

In any case, this isn't a new idea - a breakup into 6 Californias almost made the ballot last year https://ballotpedia.org/%22Six_Californias%22_Initiative_(2016). I tend to think drawing a line somewhere around 15M and saying states larger than that should be broken up for balance might make some sense (but yeah, I'm under no illusions this is likely, just pointing out it's more political feasible than many other suggestions, and that it would make a big dent in the problem of disproportionate representation by taking the least represented folks and giving them 3x as many Senators per capita).

Perhaps the solution is to stop looking at trying to push all policies at the highest level of government, and instead look to local government to address the desires of local populations. No constitutional amendments needed for you to get there with most policies right away. Instead of one state jurisdiction, wherein singular policies must apply across vast differences in politics, leading to acrimonious fights and potentially even to wild swings in policy as dominance switches back and forth between two options, we have lots of little jurisdictions which can be responsive to their particular residents? If policies are applied at the smallest possible level, many such fights should be eliminated (well except for those who want to force their viewpoints on the people from other neighborhoods who don't agree with them).

If we do this by county or municipality, if a county/city likes a particular policy, they can implement it (without a different county on the other side of the state stopping it). If multiple cities like the same policy, they can implement the same policy - only their ability to force other jurisdictions to comply is reduced (seems more of a feature than a bug, but that is my crazy libertarian streak again). If something must be unavoidably done at State level and no lower, then State law should cover it, but I'm a little skeptical of claims that things are only possible if done state-wide (seems more to come from desires to shift the cost to others for your local benefit or to force your opinion on them).

Of course the same arguments apply a step higher too - the federal government doesn't need to be involved in the details of local politics, but again, just my crazy political philosophy. Keep it as local as possible, and everyone can get what they want a lot more easily without being forced to abide by the morality laws of some group of passionate bible-thumpers a few hundred miles away.

States don't need to get involved in local politics, but do so all the time. One of my governor's "special session items" is literally the ability to yank away a city ordinance protecting the goddamn state tree from removal. Local community arguments require just as much retooling of our government given that cities, counties, and parishes typically only exist as administrative subdivisions of states and not sovereign components. Putting aside the local corruption issues (and, as a follow on, state corruption), you're still suggesting a complete overhaul of our system to allow local communities any kind of latitude.

The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.

1.) At some point that makes singing the "States and their Capitals" song very unwieldy. I'd argue that 50 is already a lot to deal with considering many are arbitrary. As a random person on the street and you're going to be lucky if you can find someone who can correctly identify >20% of states already (with emphasis on the states with greater economic importance most likely...)

I think it'd actually make it easier. I bet more people would be able to pick out San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as the capitals of the new tri-Cali's than currently know it's Sacramento. Same with Miami + Jacksonville for the Floridas (over the current Tallahasee etc).

Trying to dice up states so that people can remember their capitals better is one of the stupidest, if not the stupidest, reason to redraw state lines that I've heard in my lifetime.

Nice troll. (Capitals obviously had nothing whatsoever to do with the proposal or its motivation).

Quote:

Dicing up California in order to get more liberal Senate votes is marginally better, but only just. It'll cause more real world problems than it solves. The fight between Northern Cali and Southern Cali over water rights and usage is already a sore point. If they were two (or three!) different states, that would exacerbate that problem, which I think is considerably more important than creating more jobs for politicians.

There are definitely plusses and minuses to divvying up big states like California. In this political climate it probably wouldn't get much support, as Cali's status as a large state and large economy gives it additional pull that might be lacking in a 3 state system. But I don't think water is much of an issue for this in particular. The most important water agreements (those for the Colorado River) are already cross-state (in some cases international) and adding addition state boundaries wouldn't be much of an issue. (The main problem is northern Cali isn't even capable of monitoring water use in a lot of places and has lots of antiquated water agreements where particular farmers get access to an entire source of water rather than an amount of water.) You would have to draw a line through LA county though to make a reasonable 3 state break.

In any case, this isn't a new idea - a breakup into 6 Californias almost made the ballot last year https://ballotpedia.org/%22Six_Californias%22_Initiative_(2016). I tend to think drawing a line somewhere around 15M and saying states larger than that should be broken up for balance might make some sense (but yeah, I'm under no illusions this is likely, just pointing out it's more political feasible than many other suggestions, and that it would make a big dent in the problem of disproportionate representation by taking the least represented folks and giving them 3x as many Senators per capita).

I wonder if Art. V. of the Constitution would also have something to say about this, considering that this would effectively give the State (formerly known as) of California 3x the number of votes in the Senate as other States. And since there's no guideline limiting the reasons for which States can be divided (so by population, while making the most sense, is certainly not necessary), what would prevent other GOP States from doing the same, in order to gain more Senate seats?

I wonder if Art. V. of the Constitution would also have something to say about this, considering that this would effectively give the State (formerly known as) of California 3x the number of votes in the Senate as other States. And since there's no guideline limiting the reasons for which States can be divided (so by population, while making the most sense, is certainly not necessary), what would prevent other GOP States from doing the same, in order to gain more Senate seats?

That's a non-issue as there's already precedent (eg Virginia dividing into Virginia and West Virginia). And the 3 new states would still have substantially fewer Senators per capita than most other states.

I'm thinking you didn't read the actual proposal (it's just above) as it included also dividing Texas, Florida and New York (all the states over 13.2M people).

The trick of course is that congress would have to accept the new states.

Edit: Here's the proposal again, since you seem to think it applies only to D states and Nekojin seems to think it relates to the capital cities quiz:--------------[fil's proposal]-------------------------------The practical thing to do is to look for the extreme end of the problem and fix that first.

With a US population of ~330M, there ought to be roughly one Senator per 3.3M (ie 2 Senators for each state of ~6.6M if population were even between states). Start with the states that don't even have one Senator per 6.6M people, that is states with more than 13.2M population. There are 4 of those: CA, TX, NY, FL.

Split California into 3 states, and TX, NY and FL each into 2 states, and then you have at least one Senator per each 6.6M people.

55 states, no changes to the constitution. Significantly better balance, while still giving dis-proportionate representation to small states, as the constitution intends.-----------------------------------------------------------

But drive 30 minutes out of those cities and you're in deep red states: Trump signs everywhere and very little diversity. At the state level, that means there are a ton of restrictions (e.g. only the state-owned liquor store can sell wine and spirits) that are popular in most of the state's territory, but unpopular in the densely populated cities.

I've never heard of a state owned liquor store till your post. I googled and read up on it. I'm surprised that isn't a topic of discussion in the Soap Box, especially considering the the types of threads we see in the lounge.

Could someone with experience buying state owned liquor stores please start a thread and post your experiences and if you oppose or are for state owned liquor stores? I'm interested to hear both sides of the argument from the point of personal experiences.

The problem is, the US is basically blue cities in a sea of red rural areas. If you wanted to re-draw the map, you'd have the State of Urbania that exists as little blue dots all over the map, and the State of Farmlandia that is the entire US.

As an illustration, check out this map. Make sure you turn it up to see how the giant blue bars stick out of the red sea almost everywhere.